Thread by @monaeltahawy

For FEMINIST GIANT, I have written 13 essays on peri/menopause and getting older. Here they are:

#Menopause is the hardest thing that has ever happened to me. And it’s the best thing I’ve ever gone through.

Menopause is shit. Menopause is amazing. feministgiant.com/p/essay-menopa…

One of the greatest gifts of #menopause is shamelessness.

In lieu of my menstrual cycle, instead of shedding the lining of my uterus, I am shedding the lining of patriarchal fuckery that I was socialized into.

feministgiant.com/p/moisturize-y…

Understanding the macrocosm of the pandemic through the microcosm of #perimenopause: we must emerge, not regress.

I refuse to emerge as if unscathed. I insist that we all be scathed, that we refuse to be the people we were at the start.

feministgiant.com/p/essay-fallin… #Menopause

How often do films center a woman in her early 60s?

Rarer still is the film that centres a woman in her early 60s who wants to fuck.

Heteronormative patriarchy’s designated shelf life for cis women is age at which we cease to be its walking incubators. feministgiant.com/p/the-fuck-it-…

Whenever I want anyone to know how utterly wrenching–and also liberating– it is to go through perimenopause, I will say, nay YELL: EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE.
feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-me… #Menopause

I want to be seen. Not to be told, as I often have, that I don’t “look my age.” That is not the compliment some people think it is.

But to say “Here is a middle aged woman. Look,” at a time when it seems that every time I look away, my body has changed.
feministgiant.com/p/essay-perime…

If you think the older we get the more comfortable we are with talking about our vulvas, vaginas, pussies and cunts, you have not heard the silence about what happens to our genitals as we age, and specifically as we go through #menopause.
feministgiant.com/p/essay-in-app…

What desire is a cis woman who is child free by choice “allowed” to have at 54yrs of age? What does desire look like liberated from pressure to have children?

To desire and to be desired is political. How we fuck and who we fuck is political. feministgiant.com/p/essay-my-des… #Menopause

Ancient Egyptian word for “makeup palette” comes from “to protect.” My ancestors believed Kohl eyeliner protected them vs harsh sunlight or the Evil Eye; I believe the eyeliner I apply every day protects me vs the harsh days of pandemic and perimenopause. feministgiant.com/p/deliberate-b…

I shaved off my hair during lockdown.

Underneath the layers of my 53yrs, past all that sediment of rage upon rage, was a girl who was told-and believed-she was ugly. She was waiting for me. And to find her, I had to embrace the nakedness of a buzzed head feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-ki…

Armed with the shamelessness that is the gift of perimenopause and the urgency that is death by global pandemic, I started this newsletter because I knew it was time to write all the things I never dared to before; to become a woman who writes too much.

feministgiant.com/p/essay-avenge…

In Umm Kalthoum’s universe, love disrupts and disturbs. I migrated to her universe and pleaded for asylum.

Feminist love insists on being both powerful and tender, because the sum total is freedom. Free love is revolutionary. feministgiant.com/p/essay-a-femi…

I found out almost by chance that perimenopause could last up to 14yrs. At first, I thought “Are you fucking kidding me?” And then “How the hell did I not know that?” How was a feminist like me so ignorant about menopause? Was I not paying attention? feministgiant.com/p/essay-bloody…

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